The Unworthy Servant

Written approximately 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ:
Isaiah 53 Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? 2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. 9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

     Just the mention of His name either offends or brings peace. Who is He, this one who lived over 2000 years ago and yet impacted us more than any other before or since? A Time Magazine poll once asked, which person had the most impact of the 20th Century. Overwhelmingly, the people voted for Jesus Christ. It became so lopsided that Time had to exclude His name, putting in the stipulation that the poll concerned only those who " lived " in the 20th Century. He affected this world so much that history is really His story. His name is a curse on the lips of some and yet many speak blessings in His name. Some will do everything to stamp out His name, yet others are willing to die rather than renounce Him as their LORD and Savior. Some say, He is the Savior of the world, some say He was a good man who wanted to bring peace. Others say He was a madman or a conman and still others just don't care.

     Today we have such a wide opinion about who Jesus is. The Mormons say Jesus and Satan are brothers and were born on another world. The Jehovah’s witnesses say Jesus is the Arch Angel Michael. The Muslims say Jesus was a prophet of Allah. Some say He was a wise man like Buddha or Confucius. Some groups even say He was an alien from another planet.

Jesus even asked His disciples: Matthew 16:13-17 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. 15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven.

     Whoever you are or where ever you're from, one thing is sure, there is no middle ground with God. He is either a blessing or a curse: James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

     Who Jesus Christ is, is spiritually discerned but there are certain facts that we will investigate that will reveal more about Him.

     Many will say that the Bible is a book of fairy tales and that Jesus never existed. But historical documents and archeology dispute this. Here's what ancient historians had to say about Jesus Christ.
- Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, a member of a priestly family who became a Pharisee at the age of 19 and also became the court historian for Emperor Vespasian. In the Antiquities, he wrote about many persons and events of first century Palestine. He makes two references to Jesus. The first reference is believed associated with the Apostle James: " The brother of Jesus, who was called Christ. " He also wrote: " At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive, accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders. "
- Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus recorded information pertaining to Jesus Christ. He wrote: " Nero blamed a certain sect called Christians whom he said followed the teachings of Christ for the burning of Rome and decided to make an example of them by torturing them in the Coliseum. "
- Thallus wrote about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. His writing dates to circa 52 A.D. and the passage on Jesus Christ was contained in Thallus work on the Eastern Mediterranean world from the Trojan War to 52 A.D. Thallus noted that: " Darkness fell on the land at the time of the crucifixion. " He wrote that an eclipse caused the phenomenon.
- Though Christ was not proclaimed a deity until the fourth century, Pliny the Younger, a Roman author and administrator who served as the governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor, wrote in 112 A.D., two hundred years before the deity proclamation that: " Christians in Bithynia worshipped Christ. "

     If Jesus had been stoned, his death would have been at the hands of the Jews. The fact that he was crucified shows that the Romans intervened. The Talmud also speaks of five of Jesus' disciples.

     The science of archaeology supports the existence of Jesus Christ in that the names of people and places mentioned in the Gospels have been proven to be factual. Here are some of the discoveries that have been made.
- Critics doubted the existence of Nazareth in Jesus' day until its name showed up in a first-century synagogue inscription at Caesarea.
- Augustus census edicts in connection with the Nativity are proven by an inscription at Ankara Turkey, his famous Res Gestae, Things Accomplished in which the Roman emperor proudly claims to have taken a census three times.
- That husbands had to register their families for the Roman census was mandated in census papyri discovered in Egypt.
- That Herod the Great ruled at the time Jesus Christ was born is demonstrated by the numerous excavations of his massive public works in the Holy Land including the great Temple in Jerusalem.
- That his son Herod Antipas ruled Galilee is shown in similar digs at Sepphoris and Tiberias.
- Coins from these and the other Herodian rulers are commonplace in coin collections.

As for Jesus Christ public ministry:
- The remains of the foundation of the synagogue at Capernaum where He taught still exist below the present ruins of the fourth-century synagogue.
- The remains of Peters house at Capernaum, later converted into an octagonal Christian sanctuary have been uncovered.
- The hull of a first-century boat that sailed the waters of the Sea of Galilee in Jesus Christ time was discovered in 1986, giving us new information on how Jesus Christ could sleep through a storm during the famous episode of the Stilling of the Tempest.

Mark 4:35-39 And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them,  Let us pass over unto the other side. 36 And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships. 37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. 38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? 39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Relating to Jesus Christ final week in Jerusalem:
- An ancient flight of stairs down to the Brook Kidron has been excavated, used by Jesus and His disciples on the way to Gethsemane at the base of the Mount of Olives where ancient olive trees still thrive.
- An inscription naming His judge on Good Friday, Pontius Pilate, was discovered at Caesarea in 1961.
- The very bones of the chief prosecutor at that trial, the high priest Joseph Caiaphas, came to light inside an ossuary, a stone chest used to store bones from burial sites was uncovered in 1990. The first bones of a Biblical personality ever discovered.
- That they nailed victims to crosses, as in Jesus case, was proven when another ossuary was open north of Jerusalem in 1968 and a victim’s heel bones appeared transfixed with a seven-inch iron spike.
- Burial in tombs closed up with rolling stone disks is more than apparent today in many such sepulchers in Judea and even Galilee.
In addition, many of the sites in Jesus Christ ministry, such as Bethsaida, Chorazin, Capernaum, Caesarea Philippi, Shechem, Bethany and of course Jerusalem are in the process of excavation, promising even more archaeological discoveries relating to His life.

If the past is any precedent, all of these will confirm the New Testament accounts.

History proves that Jesus Christ did indeed exist as the Bible says He did.
The real question is: Who do you think He is?

     So far we have seen that ancient historians and archaeology support that Jesus Christ did in fact exist. But how can we know that the Bible we have today is accurate? Many say that the today's Bible is not the same as the original and that many things have been added or taken away. Is this true?

When it comes to historical documents by ancient historians we find there are few.
- One of them was Tacitus, the Roman historian who wrote The Annals of Imperial Rome in about 116 A.D. Only 1 manuscript exists and it was copied about 850 A.D.
- First-century Jewish historian Josephus who wrote The Jewish War has only 9 copies made between the 10th and 12th centuries.
- Homars Iliad, which was the Bible of the ancient Greeks has fewer than 650 manuscripts. Some from the 2nd and 3rd century. When you think that he composed it about 800 B.C., it’s quite a gap.

But how many manuscripts exist for the Bible? For the New Testament alone, they have cataloged over 5,000 Greek manuscripts.
- One of these is from around the 3rd century called: The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri.
#1 contains portions of the four gospels and the book of Acts.
#2 contains large portions of eight of Paul’s letters and a portion of Hebrews dating to 200 A.D.
#3 has a large portion of the book of Revelation dating from the 3rd century.
- The earliest portion of scripture ever found is a portion of John chapter 8. It was discovered in 1920 and in 1934 C H Roberts of Saint John’s Collage, in Oxford England was able to place it as originating somewhere between the years of 100 and 150 A.D.
- In addition to the Greek documents there are portions in other languages. There are 8,000 to 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts plus a total of 8,000 in Ethiopic, Slavic and Armenian. In all there are about 24,000 manuscripts in existence.
- F F Bruce, eminent professor at the University of Manchester, England and author of The New Testament Documents, Are They Reliable? said: " There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual witness as the New Testament. "
- Sir Frederic Kenyon, former director of the British Museum said: " In no other case is the interval of the time between the composition of the book and the date of the earliest manuscripts so short as that of the New Testament. "

     Many people believe that because the Bible has been copied so many times that it is full of mistakes and inaccuracies therefore, today we don’t have what was originally written. There are literally tens of thousands of variations between the different texts that have been found. Eyeglasses were not invented until 1373 in Venice and many of the scribes had to work under conditions with poor lighting and from texts that were faded by age so yes error was bound to come in at some points.

     Sometimes the scribe’s mind would play tricks on him between reading the script and the actual copying to a new parchment and words would get shifted. So instead of the sentence reading dog bites man it would be copied as man bites dog. The words were right but they were placed in the wrong sequence. In English or French this might cause a problem but because they were copying in Greek it was not. In Greek sequence structure doesn’t matter. One word functions as the subject of the sentence no matter where it is placed in the sequence. The meaning of the sentence isn’t distorted even if the words are not in what we consider the right order.

     Differences in the spelling of names and places would be another variant between the different manuscripts. Other variants are differences in punctuation. So do the variants between manuscripts affect any of the major doctrines of the church? None at all, even with the variant’s we have, scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix concluded that: " The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book, a form that is 99.5% pure. "

You could also read a wonderful book called: The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.

     When it comes to the Bible, how can we know that some books haven’t been left out or were changed by the early church fathers? How did they arrive at what books were to be in the Bible and which were not?

Basically the books had to meet three different criteria:
- They had to have apostolic authority, meaning they had to have been written by the apostles themselves, who were eyewitnesses to the events they wrote about or were followers of the apostles, as is the case of Mark and Luke. Mark was a helper to Peter, while Luke was an associate of Paul.
- They had to conform to what was called the rule of faith. The documents had to be in harmony with each other.
- It had to be accepted and already being used by the church.

     All the books we have now in the New Testament were accepted by the end of the second century. Dr. Bruce M. Metzger, PHD of the Princeton Theological Seminary says: " We can be confident that no other ancient books can compare with the New Testament in terms of importance for Christian history or doctrine. When one studies the early history of the canon, you walk away convinced that the New Testament contains the best sources for the history of Jesus Christ. Those who discerned the limits of the canon had a clear and balanced perspective of the gospel of Christ. Just read the other documents for yourself. They were written much later than the four gospels, some as late as the 6th century, long after Jesus was here. They carry names like the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Mary that are completely unrelated to their real authorship. On the other hand, the four gospels were accepted with remarkable unanimity as being authentic in the story they told.  "

     When it comes to the question of whether some of the books in the New Testament were changed to suit the beliefs of the early church fathers you have to realize that books were in wide circulation before the canon was accepted. If the leaders changed the words of Jesus Christ there would have been such an outcry by the early church that it would have been documented and yet not one such protest has ever been found.

So it is safe to say that the biblical account of Jesus Christ is indeed most accurate.

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The central story of the Gospels is the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. But what if He faked His death as many claim?

Paul said in: 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.

He also said in: 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; 2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. 3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures: 5 And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: 6 After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. 7 After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. 8 And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

     Did Jesus Christ really die on the cross or was His death faked? Let’s look at the medical evidence. In Lee Strobels book: The Case for Christ he interviews Dr. Robert J Stein and Alexander Metherell, MD PHD. In these interviews some facts that only medical doctors could see surface. The torture that would end on the cross actually began in the garden of Gethsemane.

The Bible says in: Luke 22:41-44 And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, 42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. 43 And there appeared an angel unto him from Heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

     There is a medical condition called hematdrosis. It is a condition associated with a very high degree of psychological stress. What happens is that severe anxiety causes the release of chemicals that break down small blood vessels in the sweat glands. As a result a small amount of bleeding occurs and the sweat comes out tinged with blood. It also has the effect of making the person’s skin extremely fragile so that when the Roman soldier flogged Jesus, His skin would have been very, very sensitive.

     Roman flogging was very brutal and though the sentence given was usually 39 lashes, the prisoner frequently received more depending on the mood of the soldier giving out the punishment. They would use a whip of braided leather thongs with metal balls woven into them. When the whip would strike the flesh, these balls would cause deep bruises or contusions, which would break open with further blows. And the whip had pieces of sharp bone as well, which would cut the flesh severely. The back would be so shredded that part of the spine was sometimes exposed by very deep cuts. One physician who has studied Roman beatings said: " As the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh. " A historian by the name Eusebius who lived in the third century described it by saying: " The sufferer’s veins were laid bare and the insides of his body were laid open to exposure. "

     Many people were known to have died from a beating like this before they were crucified. At the very least the person would suffer a tremendous amount of pain and go into hypovolemic shock which is a condition brought on by loss of a large amount of blood. Because of the terrible effects of the beating Jesus received, there is no question that Jesus was already in a critical condition even before the nails were driven through His hands and feet.

     After He arrived at Golgotha, they bound Him to a cross. They fastened him to it by driving spikes that were 5 to 7 inches long through His wrists just below the palms. This is where the median nerve runs. This is the largest nerve going into the hand and the spike would have crushed it. The pain that this would have produced would be like someone taking a pair of pliers and squeezing and crushing that nerve. Imagine the pain of a dentist accidentally hitting a nerve in your mouth but instead of the pain leaving, it stays. Spikes were driven through His feet, producing the same pain He received in His hands. This is just the beginning of what He suffered. Next because of the weight of His body on the cross His arms would have stretched and His shoulders would have become dislocated.

     Crucifixion is essentially an agonizingly slow death by asphyxiation. The reasons for this is that the stresses on the muscles and diaphragm put the chest into an inhaled position and to exhale the person must push up on his feet so that the tension on the muscles would be eased for a moment. Each breath was complete agony. Every time the person would struggle to breath their battered back and spine would rub against the rough wood of the cross and the spikes would tear deeper into their flesh. Eventually exhaustion would set in and they would go into a condition called respiratory acidosis. This eventually leads to an irregular heartbeat and to finally a heart attack. This is the manner in which Jesus Christ died.

     How do we know He actually died and didn’t faint? When a person dies their blood stops flowing and in Jesus case because of the hypovolemic shock which contributed to the rapid heartbeat and failure, there was a collection of fluid in the membrane around the heart as well as the lungs. So when the Roman soldier thrust the spear into Jesus side blood and water flowed out. This can only occur if a person’s heart has stopped beating and is dead.

     Jesus died in a way that exacted the most pain that a human being could endure and He did it all with you in mind. Jesus was not killed, He gave His life willingly and paid a debt that none of us are able to pay ourselves.